


Their High Road

by GradyNumbers



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Universe, Implied Wrenchers, M/M, One Shot, Other, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 10:56:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11462151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GradyNumbers/pseuds/GradyNumbers
Summary: What made him stay?





	Their High Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another piece that has been on the mind since Season 3's end. I hope to continue it and follow with more projects including another Season 3 doozy with a special guest. Please feel free to comment or message me about anything I really appreciate every word~

The world passed by like a heavy fog beyond the window of which he leaned heavily against. The cold resonated through from the other side, morphing the rattling car door into materials of stone and ice as if he was resting outside still in the unrelenting winter. Or rather that he was still slumped weakly in the seat of the bowling alley with nothing but his running blood and a glass of whiskey to warm him. The unfazed and empty world beyond the car window did nothing but reflect his frozen state of being. He remained as stagnant as ever it seemed, although the girl appeared to be much more set in her determination. Something fueled by heat and passion drove her then as she pushed the car forward down the never-ending road. Something fiery that went beyond the power of a double whiskey. Something that Wes Wrench had let die out 4 years ago in the very same snow that kept him frozen there still. 

Was it limbo? Did it stretch further than the reaches of that supposed bowling alley? Or were they traveling to where they belonged after all? At least where he belonged, he thought. Perhaps she was in a better state, even with her short voyage on the prison bus. Even with those hunters stalking her, and by chance and fate alike, himself. Or perhaps he was being too poetic, even then catching his pondering thoughts and not having the strength to usher them away. From what he knew his life might as well have been limbo. How could this “real” transition, the passage from one realm to the next, make a difference in the end, anyway? And did it matter? To the girl it did. He could see that now, read it in her bonfire eyes, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t long for that. Something warm to hold onto, a dedication and purpose so meaningful that it had a way of pulling the most battered and broken in blood, bones, or spirit out of a catatonic existence in order to send them charging towards the sun. It seemed foolish, but revenge was a foolish thing. Foolish and oh, so irresistible. The girl had it right. Maybe he should learn again. 

He focused his eyes and found that they were browsing through a residential area. Every turn was knowledgeable, familiar. She never hesitated. That is until she pulled the small green beetle into the driveway of what seemed to be an even smaller apartment. She stepped out with the air of confidence that must have been her natural state before she was locked up, yet when she spotted the complex she paused. Her eyes made their way from rock to liquid as she observed, though he watched them harden like lava as quickly as they had dissolved. With surprising force she snapped the door shut and having nowhere else to go he followed. He’d rather not sit in the car and rot away like some misbehaving child or dog with nothing but the window cracked for its convenience. He heaved himself up and out, ungraciously so, and stalked after her.

Wrench wondered if she had lived there. After all she had found the spare key almost immediately, shaking her head at it even as she stuck it in the lock. It didn’t seem she cared too much about leaving finger prints, though Wrench himself was rather reluctant to place his hands down. He lived a life where you did not touch anything in a place of which you did not belong, and not simply out of manners. He kept his hands close together on instinct as the girl made her way inside him still at her heels until they hit the open living space. She had wavered again, now stuck in place in front of some muddled scene, a display quietly chaotic to a passerby, but much more distressing with the history behind it. Her eyes turned lazy again as they graced over broken glass and evidence markers, muddy footprints and drained blood. He stayed a pace behind her, taking in the scene as she did but, with no knowledge of its past, he was looking back to her rather quickly. This is what had brought her to his side. This dried gore and shattered wreckage that remained was a precursor to her fate. Like tarot cards they told a story, each a different tale along the way all coming together in the end to cast the image clearer. Unfortunately, Wrench didn’t know shit about tarot cards. At least not this deck.

She made her way forward, slowly at first, but more certain with each step as if the workings of them stoked her fire. It wasn’t confidence now, but rage bubbling under skin through rushing veins. He recognized it, he had felt it. As she stared on she was focusing on her enemy, not simply what she had lost or what she had done. She saw the opposer painted, no, soaked red without any nook, crack, or crevice left untarnished. As her feet marched on, any sympathy she had remaining in her spirit caught fire from her very own friction. She was rising, Wrench supposed. When they had found each other they were nothing but ashes clouding together out of necessity and force, not purpose. They had blown away together, herded and gathered by her hunters only to fall through their fingers as soot and cinders tend to do whether they like it or not. They flew freely from one place to another and whatever their last destination had been it was anything but a grave for her, even if it may have just been his. She burned there, in that liminal space she struck ablaze once more and he had felt it. Like a moth drawn to a flame he followed her out the doors of the bowling alley because she had purpose and he had nothing. She was the phoenix now and him the ashes that lingered on her feathers, burned out long ago and failing to burn again. He clung having nowhere else to fall. He stayed craving the warmth that she possessed, praying he’d feel it once more. 

He watched, as strangers do, as she scavenged the apartment for whatever it was that brought her there besides that of her own closure. He thought about offering assistance, but his hands remained locked tightly by his sides out of his own necessity and desire. She didn’t appear to mind in the least. Obviously she was the one with the plan at the moment, the purpose. He would only be in the way now as she searched. Though she returned, stilled calmly in the living space for but a second before moving her sacked material, a hefty wad of cash, to her pocket and progressing to a more set location. He waited again, a lump of coal misplaced in a forest fire. A rather large lump of coal at that. He observed for the brief moments he had, looking at the decorations of the scene before him. Peaceful, yet shabby, portraits, artifacts, and cushioned seats long left lusting for warmth. Had she left them abandoned, or was the owner simply a ghost, residing in this space, but truly living in another? He could recognize the air in the environment, how familiar it really was, just as she came back. 

She was looking at him then and he perked at her attention. With a hand she beckoned him closer. He did so with little hesitation. She was moving her new scavenged prize between her teeth, a plain bobby pin, and plucking the plastic nib away. She twisted it, the metal bending easily in her fingers, and she made herself the clever craftsman, the action of which drew Wrench’s eyes forward with suspicious interest. A petty thief, a cat burglar, or simply a resourceful girl with too much time on her hands? No matter her background she had officially freed him then, muttering “Thought you wouldn’t want that jangling around,” as she freed herself as well with a few nimble maneuvers. She took the remains of the metal cuffs and stowed them away in her other pocket before looking back to him curiously just as he was at her. 

“Sorry I can’t…” her hands flicked in front of her similarly to how they had flashed when they first “talked,” moving in some kind of mock sign language to portray her ignorance to it. 

His gaze felt heavy and he shook himself into a response. A curt nod or two with a jumbled shrug as punctuation. 

She jolted then, an idea rocking her heels into movement once more, and she journeyed to the kitchen area, this time Wrench following behind her as it seemed her intention involved him. Shoving open a drawer, she scraped together a few old recites, maybe a business card or two, and a pen of which she scribbled at her hand. With no ink streaming onto her palm, she took the tip between her lips and pulled at it, shaking it afterwards until it was flowing freely. Wrench noted resourceful once again. She placed the snippets of scrounged paper on the counter top and scribbled away there, scrawling quickly before sliding him the slips and waiting expectantly, but patiently.  


Wrench peered down to the note. _My name is Nikki. What’s your’s?_ His eyes shifted back to her, however, she did nothing but nod adamantly at the paper, encouraging a response. He glanced at her scrawling as if it were a blasphemous query, which it was. Well, maybe not anymore, but again his instinct cursed at him “No!” It scorched through his fingertips as he reached for the pen. He placed his boundaries up, just as _he_ had done, whether it was in demand he do so or not. 

_Wrench_  


He slid the paper back her way and watched as her face puckered in sour amusement. “Wrench?” She ran it through her mouth in trial as a name and couldn’t help but smile. “What kind of a name is that?” She naturally spoke to him, looking his way and giving a shrug indicating “What?”

His brow furrowed, something Nikki was already becoming accustomed to. He pointed to his chest. _Mine._

Nikki took her smile softly and let it run onto the paper, but it slipped when she formed her next question. _What are you going to do?_

Wrench was shaking his head automatically, in disbelief of himself and how he got here in the first place. _I don’t know._

She was writing quickly then, her own passion coming forth controlled in very few words stunningly. She presented Wrench with her response and leaned on the counter, presenting herself as patient and rightly so. 

Wrench read and pondered carefully. _I’m going to finish something. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but that’s my plan. You don’t have to stay, I won’t be kicking you out either. You already helped me a lot. Thank you. But the guy said you were on a better path so you could help me more if you want._ A proposal, a partnership contract inscribed on scrupulous paper slips. Hell, he’d had stranger. This was as legitimate as any to him maybe more important than any of them. It was kind, earnest, heartfelt, appreciative, and that’s more than he usually received. 

He took to regarding her. She was staring off, not pushing him for an answer as she was reflecting on her own business it seemed, whatever that business was. If he was present for it or not did not matter to her, she was rushing into the sun, whether with wings of steel, wood, or nothing at all. He could at least inspect her own personally constructed wings. _What business?_

She fell back to attention with the paper sliding her way. Not a reply, but a question, something Nikki should become comfortable with. She hardly hesitated in returning to her scribbling passing it back his way, but not turning from him as she had done before. She stood taller, tougher, as though she had not been bleeding out only hours earlier. Wrench recognized her fire once more and could not help but appreciate it in its purity. Her own response was determination incarnate and Wrench found himself falling deeper for her apparent purpose. For _him_ , he found himself locked soundly with her, tighter than the shackles that had previously bound them together. 

_I have to settle a score for someone._

Nikki did have it right. Maybe he really should learn again.


End file.
